


Not Today

by neverwheredreamer (clutzycricket)



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: 5+1 Things, Crack Fic Done in A Serious Manner, Crack Pairings, F/M, Westeros is Not Narnia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-05
Updated: 2013-02-05
Packaged: 2017-11-28 07:03:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/671624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clutzycricket/pseuds/neverwheredreamer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>5 Times Remus Lupin couldn't take Sansa Stark home, and one time he had help.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not Today

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, this is fic where there is a doorway to Westeros in Hogwarts. Yes, this is a crack pairing.

Or, five times Remus Lupin couldn't take Sansa Stark home, and one he had help.

That first time they met, when Sansa was eleven, she was in no state to notice him. She was reliving the sweep of Ice, Joffrey’s voice, the madness of the crowd. Her father’s head, unrecognizable, up on a pike with Septa Mordane. She was alone, she thought, and did not have to hide.

“Are you alright, miss?” asked the boy. Sansa gasped, nearly flinging herself off her bed in her shock and fear.

But he was no knight, nor did he wear Lannister colors. Clad in a white tunic with odd fastenings and loose black trousers, he looked like he belonged in the citadel, with shaggy brown hair and an air of distracted awkwardness. There was still ink splattering her fingers, she noticed.

“It’s only… you were crying,” he continued, stepping a bit closer. “And I’m not entirely sure where I am…” He looked around at the red stone of Maegor’s Holdfast, puzzled. “Though I don’t think I’m in school anymore…” He looked at the bruise that Ser Meryn had given her, and hissed. “What happened?”

“I displeased His Grace,” Sansa said, trying for politeness. “Ser Meryn corrected me.” She did not know this boy- was he a Lannister spy, trying to get her to admit to treason?

His face grew hard, and Sansa waited for him to comment. “What did he do, hit you with a poker?” he grumbled, walking over in a brisk pace, awkwardness set aside. “I’ve only seen a bruise that deep when Sirius annoyed Avery and he hexed a bludger, he could have broken a bone.” He pulled out a slender stick, meeting Sansa’s eyes. “I can soothe it,” he promised, slowly raising his hand under her chin. “I just need to look at it, I promise.”

He tapped her bruise, and Sansa felt some of the twinges of pain go away, though not entirely. She didn’t ask why, but he gave her a rueful grin.

“Sometimes erasing the marks just makes it worse,” he said, and something in his voice made her think he’d learned that lesson a while before.

“Thank you, ser” Sansa said, hoping that courtesies would work even with a boy as strange as this one.

“Remus,” he said, suddenly. “Remus Lupin.” He gave her a bashful smile, and added, “What is your name? I don’t usually go blundering about like this- that’s usually James or Sirius’ jobs, and Peter and I stay out of the danger zone…”

“Sansa Stark,” she said, wondering how he hadn’t heard the story of her father’s death yet. Perhaps he was a sorcerer from a far off land, though he looked barely older than her.

~

Sansa wondered how Remus could stand her sometimes, crying almost every time they met. She was thirteen, and a woman grown and married. Remus was fifteen and probably had better things to do then deal with her crying.

“They have made a Lannister out of me,” was the only thing she could manage.

Remus sat next to her, rubbing circles on her back. The warmth and pressure was comforting, and Sansa rested her head on his shoulder. “The Lannister sigil is the same as Gryffindor’s, you know,” he mused. “House of the brave. I can see that in you, though perhaps it wouldn’t be the House I’d sort you in. Ravenclaw, maybe, for your love of books,” he continued, “but you do have Gryffindor bravery, Sansa, and strength.”

She shook her head, though not very much. “I almost escaped,” she whispered. Highgarden would have been safe, she thought, far away from the Red Keep, from Joffery and the Queen. Remus couldn’t take her with him, after all- they’d tried, every time he used the doorway. His friend Sirius was looking into it, he promised, using the library at his home, far different then his school’s own. But they had no promises, not like the one Margaery had offered her.

She’d whispered Willas’ name, she reflected, as if it was a prayer, dreaming of a gentle lord with a soft smile and warm hazel eyes. Or maybe a spell, like the one Remus used to sneak about undetected. She would have missed him in Highgarden, but he’d agreed that she needed to get away. 

Remus kept talking, allowing her to focus on his voice, on the story he was telling. It was about the founding of a great city in his world, and the origin of his name. “So instead of them dying, they were rescued by a she-wolf, you see, and she nursed them like their own…”

Sansa thought of Lady, who would have done that. Lady had been good, and kind, and would have protected two lost babies.

“Remus?” she asked, not wanting to anger him. He was one of the few people she could truly trust, and she did not want him to stop visiting her. “Could you take me to my mother? Please?”

Remus stiffened. “Sansa… I don’t think so. Not without putting you in even more danger. We don’t know if brooms would work once we took them through the doorway, and I can’t Apparate yet, or make a Portkey- not that I can do that without knowing where we are going. And a long journey…” The terror in his voice was obvious. “Sansa, I will not put you at risk like that.”

“At risk?” Sansa’s laugh was broken. “Joffery has made it clear he does not see marriage vows as a barrier to his desires.”

Remus growled at that, something sharp that she hadn’t heard from him before. “Sansa, if only…” he bit off what he was going to say. “In my world, Sansa, monsters exist. I’m one of them.”

“Oh?” she asked, annoyance making her voice as tart as Arya’s could get. She sat up, facing her friend. “Will you cut of my father’s head? Will you order me stripped and beaten? Threaten me with rape? Insult me at every turn? Offer me false promises of safety and friendship? You have done none of that, Remus. You could never be as bad as them!”

“Even a man pure in heart,” he said, “who says his prayers by night, may become a wolf when the wolfsbane blooms and the autumn moon is bright. Well, I think that’s how it goes, I wasn’t overeager to learn it.”

“They say my brother and his men turn into wolves when they fight their battles,” Sansa said slowly, trying to figure out what he was trying to say. His shoulders were slumped, and he looked as dejected as poor Ser Dontos.

“Ah, but I doubt that it is the truth,” he said, crossing his arms. “In their cases, at least. Lycanthropy, it’s called. Every full moon, I turn into a wolf, there is bloodlust and I am caged for everyone’s safety. Even Riverrun is too far to reach before then,” he added. “We have less than a week.”

Sansa looked at him, thinking over the timing of his visits. He never had visited during a full moon, that was true. “I understand,” she said, clasping her hands over his. “But you are still my friend, Remus. Possibly the only true one I have. And this doesn’t change that.” She gave him a weak smile. “You cage yourself, you said? That makes you better than them.”

His smile was slow but true, and he gave her a hug, warm and reassuring and smelling faintly of old books and lemons. He pulled out a small wrapped pastry from his pocket.

He sighed. “One day I’ll get the gift-giving thing right.”

Sansa laughed for the first time in what felt like years, and shared the lemon cake. It was only polite.

~

Remus Lupin was fond of books, as a rule. Had been for the sixteen years he’d been alive. But he was angry, and frustrated, and still couldn’t find the answers he needed. He wanted to throw the book across the room, because it wasn’t giving him any answers.

“Cheer up, mate,” Sirius said. He was consulting a list, which he was refusing to share. “We’ll find a way to open up the way to your dolly bird, and bring her here safe and sound.”

“Don’t call her that,” Remus said quietly. He’d overheard some of the courtiers in the Red Keep calling her Little Dove, after the Queen’s example.

“Yeah, well, Moony, you do realize that bringing her here is probably a bad idea, right? On the level of some of mine?” Sirius sounded, well, serious. He’d been a wreck after what nearly happened to Snape, and Remus was putting his newfound attempts at contrition to good use. “Things are getting bad out there, and you’re going to be a target. People are scared, and well… the Ministry isn’t all that helpful. Corrupt as fuck, really. Or crazy. Or both.” He blinked, shaking his head to get his hair out of his eyes. “Which explains a lot, doesn’t it?”

“Sirius, you weren’t exactly helpful yourself,” Remus looked around. No one else was even near them, but still.

“I’m sorry, Remus,” Sirius said. “It was… it was stupid, really, and a lot more like my relatives than I want to be.” He pulled a face. “Though I really do think he knew what he was walking into. Or at least I thought he wouldn’t be stupid enough to listen to me. He never does. And considering the crowd he runs with…”

“You regret putting me at risk, not Snape,” Remus finished. Which he couldn’t hold against Sirius- he’d been wondering about curses he could cast on Joffrey, after all, without casting blame on Sansa.

Oh, god, what would Snape do to Sansa, if he found out about her? What would the creepy dark wizards hiding in Slytherin do? Or even the world at large, if they found out she was friends with a werewolf? It would end horribly for her.

Joffrey was dead, and the Queen was being punished, Sansa had told him, hidden under a false name in the Eyrie. Maybe he could take Sansa somewhere in her world, that wasn’t at war. They’d wondered if they could throw themselves at the mercy of the Dornish, after all, since they supposedly hated the Lannisters. (And, Sansa had suggested, looking a bit frightened and hopeful, Remus could use his magic there. He’d be well-respected, she thought, and he couldn’t have that in the Wizarding World.)

“I have to do something,” he said hopelessly. “Sirius, you didn’t see it there, Baelish is horrible and he looks at Sansa like she’s a present and her aunt is crazy like your family and she’s so scared.”

Sirius put a hand on his shoulder. Since Sirius had flinched at physical contact first year, Remus had to give him due credit. “We’ll figure something out. Even if we have to go and do the Merlin thing over there.”

The problem with staying mad at Sirius was that he was a fundamentally good person who had been raised to be a murdering asshole. And had a good kicked puppy expression. You were always a bit worried that rejection would break him.

So Remus didn’t reject him. Just tried to get a peek at his notes.

“I was talking to the house elves,” Sirius said absently, noticing Remus’ blatant attempt to read over his shoulder. “They have their own history about the castle. Pretty interesting.”

“You asked the house elves?” Remus asked, a bit baffled. House Elves were always vaguely creepy, he thought. They seemed a messed up version of his mother’s stories about brownies.

“House elves keep their master’s secrets,” Sirius answered, tapping a word with his quill. “Right. Come and go room. Pity we didn’t know about that before the map was finished. But you didn’t use the seventh floor, right? It was the third floor…” He frowned. “And it took you to this Eyrie place, right?”

Remus nodded. “Into Sansa’s room, the same as when she was in Maegor’s Holdfast.”

“So it follows her, then,” Sirius said, sighing. “Moony, seriously, we need to think about the Merlin idea. If Sansa’s brother was King in the North, she could be Queen. And that might be safer for her than stuck with this Baelish bloke, from what you said.”

“Her brother- and mother- was murdered for that. Most of her family was,” Remus pointed out.

“So, it might be the best plan for both of you to just take her and run far away from both wars,” Sirius said, and Remus tried not to remember that Sirius had a large number of relatives on the opposite side of the war.

“I’ll think about it,” he said after a minute.

Sirius rolled his eyes, before saying, “So, the sigil of your lady’s house is a wolf, then…”

Remus threw the book at him.

~

Three days before turning seventeen, Lily was going to strangle Remus, she just knew it. All he’d said was that it was important, and a secret, and that James wasn’t involved in this, promise. (Even if something had made Potter stop acting like such a prat, she still didn’t trust him not to prank someone when he had a bad day just yet.)

So she’d followed him into the third floor corridor, because Remus looked near –panicked, and he was forgetting that he was taller than her, and he had to keep stopping to wait for her, which wasn’t like him at all.

He’d marched her through a door, and she’d realized they weren’t in Hogwarts anymore. It was far too cold to be Hogwarts, because up until now she had been warm, even in the tail end of January.

There was also the fact that the girl in the rust-colored gown out of a fantasy novel was not a ghost, but living and a couple of years younger than them. She was absurdly pretty, whoever she was, with tea-colored curls spilling down her back and china-blue eyes. Tall, too, able to fit just under Remus’s chin. And not delicate- there was steel there, in the way she stood up and looked over them both.

“Remus, she can help?” the girl asked, sparing a glance at the cot nearby. There was a little boy on it, Lily noticed now, and he was pale as milk, and shivering, eyes closed.

“Lily’s the best potions-maker I know,” Remus said, tucking the girl’s hair behind her ear. “Sirius is good at healing spells, but those aren’t good for what we’ll need for Robin.”

“No more sweetsleep?” the girl- Lily really needed to learn her name- asked. “Petyr’s using it to make Robin worse, I am certain. And I will not let my cousin die. I don’t trust what Petyr will do afterwards.”

“It would help if I had any idea what was going on,” Lily pointed out.

“Lily, may I present my friend Lady Sansa Stark of Winterfell, rightful Queen in the North, currently in hiding as Alayne Stone,” Remus gestured to Sansa with a quick flick of the wrist, “And her cousin, Robert Arryn, Lord of the Vale and True Warden of the East, who is not in hiding but is called Sweetrobin.” He blinked. “I got that right, didn’t I?”

Sansa smiled at that, bright and quick. Oh, Remus, Lily thought, you’ve gone and done it now. “Close enough for now. Sirius and Peter Pettigrew are guarding the chambers. Lady Lily, I thank you for coming. Petyr Baelish, the Lord Protector, is… well.” She sighed. “I thought he was my friend, at first.”

“I didn’t,” Remus grumbled. “Creepy perverted…” He continued, swearing in a way worthy of Black.

Sansa ignored this speech, continuing, “But he has abused my trust, and I fear he will murder my cousin. He has a shaking sickness, and the medicine he takes does not help.”

“Shaking sickness? Epilepsy?” Lily asked, looking at Robert. He didn’t look much like Sansa, she decided, but the bruises were more to the point. He’d fallen badly at least once, she noticed, and something was wrong with his eyes when she opened them, a yellow tinge. “A purgative might work to get rid of the poison, one of the ones used for long-term poisons or addictions,” she said, thinking she’d start with the one used for kids who were addicted to Fizzing Whizzbies “and I think there are potions that wizards use for things like this. A few families have it, I think.”

“Small group of them, yeah,” Remus said. “Most of them died out when Dumbledore was in school, I think.”

There was a scuffle outside, and Sansa turned paler, shaking like Robin.

“Who are you?” came an unfamiliar voice.

“Lord Baelish,” Sansa said quietly. “What are they doing?”

“With this lot?” Lily said, surprised by the fondness in her voice. “I’ve learned it’s better not to ask until the mess is cleaned up.” Then she remembered the incident with the bathtubs last year. “Most of the time. We’ll deal with Baelish.”

“Dammit, I demand to see the boy!” came another voice. “I’ve been hearing disturbing reports…”

“Yohn Royce,” Sansa said, a look of hope on her features. “He opposes Lord Baelish.”

Remus put his hand in Sansa’s, a gesture of reassurance that looked like habit. How long had Remus been keeping this a secret? “Mmm, that sleeping drought in Corbray’s drink worked, then?”

“And Mya carried my message,” Sansa said, “Though a bit sooner than intended.” She frowned at that, as Robert stirred.

“Alayne?” he said, in a high wavering voice, hands trying to lift his tiny frame off the bed. “What’s going on? Who are they?” There was a loathing in his voice that would have surprised Lily if she didn’t grow up with Severus. Robert had probably been teased his whole life, and if Sansa was the only one in his corner, he’d be jealous of her. The trick was in knowing what set him off.

Though his scowl at Remus was a bit adorable. Remus was quick and surprisingly good with his fists when needed. Plus he was about probably almost twice Robert’s age.

“Oh, sweetling, I have a story to tell you,” Sansa said. “For starters, I’m really your cousin Sansa. Lord Baelish was hiding me, because the Queen wants me dead. I am sorry for lying to you, but I didn’t want you to be scared. This is Lily, who thinks she can help you feel better, and Remus, who is my friend. Lord Baelish is doing wrong things, though, and we need help to stop him.”

“Is he going to fly?” the boy asked eagerly.

Sansa closed her eyes. “Possibly.” Lily looked at Remus, who winced and shook his head.

“I was told not to let Lord Baelish in,” Sirius said, and Sansa shook her shoulders out a bit before walking to the door.

“I am very happy you got my message,” she said to the man in the bronze armor, who was backed up by even more. “I asked someone I trusted to look in on Lord Robert, and she is going to make something to remove the residue of sweetsleep from him. Lord Baelish’s papers are under the bed, including a list of the men he has bought, blackmailed, and threatened to his side.”

Royce looked at her in shock. And possibly awe. The other man, who was small and slight and didn’t look a threat, was looking at her in horror.

“Only Cat,” Sansa said, making him flinch.

Remus was behind her, giving Baelish a mild smile that Lily knew too well.

First rule of surviving Hogwarts, Lily thought wryly, never enrage a Maruader, for they are more devious than subtle, and you look good covered in egg. Or potion. Or, memorably, spiders.

“You won’t be able to retake Winterfell now,” the captured lord said spitefully. His last blows, perhaps. “You just destroyed that chance. I’d had such hopes for you.”

“I am my father’s daughter,” Sansa’s voice was cold and clear, and the men in front of her were whispering. “A woman of honor, and I could not go home at the cost of a child’s life.”

Lily smiled at that, and started writing down what potions she should use. She had a feeling Sansa’s chances were better than anyone imagined.

~

It was past Sansa’s sixteenth nameday when Aegon Targaryen came to Riverrun, and was greeted by the massed forces of the North, Riverlands, and Vale.

Lady Sansa was as beautiful as Tyrion had said. And as cold. There were very few she truly trusted, Aegon noticed, with the Ladies Mormont, Brynden Tully, and her strange friends at the top of the list, along with the vexing Lady Wylla.

Aegon hoped that Tyrion agreed to have his marriage annulled like Lady Wylla declared he should. There was no doubt in anyone’s mind that her heart was in the hands of another- Lupin, the gawky boy whose jokes made you laugh a minute after their target had left the room in a dazed huff, who guarded the queen with a quiet protectiveness.

Aegon was almost jealous- Lady Sansa was beautiful, and their marriage would have strengthened their alliance. (Almost as well as Quentyn had, somehow calming Dany long enough to get her to agree to their plan. He’d claimed help in the form of a man who turned into a rat, and gathered the information they had needed in exchange for finding a girl in Braavos, the long-lost Arya Stark. Seeing Black change from man to hound made him think this was more likely than he had thought.)

But the couple was close, and trusted each other in a way that Aegon had to admire.

“I wouldn’t count on much help from the Imp today,” Lady Wylla said, the green in her hair a bit faded but her air of mischief unsubdued by the winter winds howling.

“Why is that?” Aegon asked, not sure he wanted to know. No one in Riverrun trusted Tyrion, knowing the Lannisters held their Lord and his daughter.

“Lily convinced him to seek an annulment, since the High Septon is here,” she said, all innocence and helpfulness. “And since Lily is scares the Marauders into behaving…” Her smile was like a mermaid’s from a tale, sharp and dangerous. (And strangely alluring. Damn.)

He’d probably been forced to agree, with no benefit to himself. Which meant he would be sulking and peevish. And therefore unhelpful, and prone to making more tensions instead of less.

“I see,” he said, as Lady Wylla waited for a response to her news. “We were planning on discussing how to take Winterfell from the Boltons today, were we not?”

“We will be discussing that,” Wylla said. “The Starks are the power in the north, not the Boltons and certainly not the Lannisters.” The fierceness in her expression said as much as her words- the North would not allow the Lannisters to use Lady Stark as a puppet, even a turncoat Lannister.

Perhaps especially not a turncoat Lannister. Lily Potter had prevented Tyrion’s murder, most likely, if he had tried to press a claim on the Stark girl’s hand and lands.

Whatever discussion they had planned was tabled when a message came from Daenerys at the Wall.

The ruins of the Wall, at any rate.

~

A year after the Wall fell, as Stannis Baratheon was being burnt with his Red Priestess and Shireen Baratheon was named Lady of Storm’s End, Sansa finally could see Winterfell.

She just wished Remus was with her, instead of imprisoned inside with Sirius. And Arya, who had taken Nymeria and fled the night after Bolton men had raised the weary camp. The moon had been full the night before, and she at the two remaining Marauders had been trading worried looks since moonfall.

“The gates are open,” Howland Reed said, looking a bit relieved. “I admit, it is good to think that we will not have to damage the castle yet again. I think Winterfell has suffered a bit too much these past years.”

Sansa barely head him, for there were three slight figures in front of the gate. One sent up a set of silver-white sparks, and she laughed, setting her horse to a gallop, not caring about the bruises she would be getting from this.

“We got your castle, stupid,” Arya said, Needle on her hip. There was something brown on her fingernails, and Sansa refused to reflect on it, or the fact that Remus was drawn and leaning on the gateway, or the trace smell of sick on Sirius.

“Bolton’s dead,” Remus said, voice flat.

“I killed him,” Sirius said, a stubborn lift to his chin. “I locked Remus in the crypts before moonrise, and Arya and I dealt with his men. She got the older one, I got the noisy psycho.” His hands were bloodied, scabs on his knuckles and a bruise on his face, one Sansa knew was made by an armored hand. From the looks on all three faces, Sansa suspected that most of the story would remain untold.

Remus pulled himself straight, walking to Sansa and making a stiff bow. His mouth was twitching as he said, “Lady, the castle is yours.”

Not caring who was watching, Sansa threw herself into his arms, making sure to support his weight as she showered his cheeks with kisses.

“Hey, don’t I get any love?” Sirius teased.

“ Lady Meera is on her way,” Sansa said archly, ignoring the twinge of pain that was in her heart at the reminder of Bran, lost among the heart trees. The godswood would be renamed in his honor, Sansa planned, and a small stone bench made for her to remember. “Since you could barely take your eyes off of her, you can ask her for a token of affection.”

With that, she and Remus supported each other as they walked through the walls of Winterfell.


End file.
